


those were her words

by Spatz



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Haircuts, Past Rape/Non-con, Podfic Available, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatz/pseuds/Spatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before they leave, Angharad pulls out a tub of white paint, the kind the War Boys use on their skin. </p>
<p>"We don't have to be silent anymore," she says, pushing the tin into the middle of their circle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	those were her words

**Author's Note:**

> This story deliberately ignores the prequel comics. Warnings for a very brief, mildly graphic description of a past rape. Thanks to inmyriadbits for reading this over, as always!

The night before they leave, Angharad pulls out a tub of white paint, the kind the War Boys use on their skin. 

"We don't have to be silent anymore," she says, pushing the tin into the middle of their circle. Toast can smell the metallic bite of the paint from her seat. "Let the last thing he gets from us in this place be the truth."

Angharad writes her words right there on the ground behind the pool, where they will be the first thing old Joe sees walking in: OUR BABIES WILL NOT BE WARLORDS. 

Capable writes WE ARE NOT THINGS in the room just off the main space, above Angharad and Miss Giddy's beds. It's the phrase she and Angharad use most often, the first words of rebellion they'd shared with Toast after she arrived at the Citadel. 

The Dag writes her message above the vault door: an odd choice, but it suits her, sideways and sly. WHO KILLED THE WORLD? 

Cheedo is too timid to dip her fingers in the paint, too new to have the same flood of hatred penned up in her chest, but she pulls out the old leather bag they use for collecting laundry, and starts packing it with things for their escape.

Toast doesn't want to bring anything from this place with her to the Green Place, and she doesn't have any words for what she feels about that bastard. 

Angharad doesn't want any violence, even made Furiosa promise there would be no unnecessary killing. Toast has kept quiet about that even though she couldn't care less about War Boys -- but Toast has wished for Joe's blood every time he came inside her, imagined how his face would look after a bullet every time he pinned her to the bed, wrapped the length of her hair around his hand and yanked her head back.

Joe is a necessary killing in the shape of a man. Toast knows a lot, but she doesn't know the words to tell him that.

But she might know a way to piss him off.

In the box of things they use for mending clothes, there is a small pair of scissors: plastic, dull, and brightly colored -- a thing for children. Toast takes them, walks up the stairs to her room, and hacks off her waist-length hair in ragged chunks. 

Then she takes the coils and cuts them into pieces, until there is nothing left but a snarled pile of fuzz.

She drops the scissors next to the pile and reaches up. Her head feels strangely light, and her hair is sticking up in all directions. It's nothing like the tame crop of Furiosa's hair, but something unruly and wild. 

Cheedo gasps when Toast walks back down the staircase, but Angharad just smiles. 

"Good choice," is all Angharad says. The light from the windows catches the silvery starburst of scars on her face as she speaks, the ones she put there with her own hand.

Toast grins back, and goes to help Cheedo with the packing.

She doesn't see the world the way Angharad does, can't use her words like Angharad does -- but in this, they are sisters. Old Joe can burn in hell. They're going to the Green Place.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] those were her words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760466) by [Shmaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shmaylor/pseuds/Shmaylor)




End file.
